The problem with answer this question is that the answer is decidedly different if your woman is a pastor and your woman is a man. A study reveals the shameful reality that women clergy are making 76 cents to every dollar their male counterparts make, which is worse than the national average.
This is an especially disturbing reality in 2016 when we have celebrity ministers who are making triple digits and we have parish woman clergy who can’t pay their student loans and who are considering food stamps.
The fact is that women are still considered secondary wage earners as Pam Durso, Executive Director, points out when she was interviewed about the study:
Do you know if the pay gap is as wide between women and men who pastor the larger churches?
I don’t know because Baptists don’t share financial information …. But a couple of things have come up in this conversation. There are not as many women serving as senior pastors, so it’s hard to compare that because a lot of the women … are associate pastors or children’s minsters. And that also reflects an inequity because women don’t have an equal opportunity to serve as senior pastors.
I think churches need to be the leading voice in equity for women when it comes to pay and to having their gifts and callings put to use. We should be on the forefront — instead of on the backside — of what society is doing.
We need to be progressive if we claim we are because right now our words and our actions don’t match up.